US leads post-COVID reduction in gas flaring
By Kunle Falayi
The U.S., one of the top contributors to gas flaring globally, reduced its gas flaring by more than 3 billion cubic meters in 2021, data from the World Bank Gas Flaring Tracker has shown. It is the largest gas flaring reduction after the year COVID disrupted supply chain across the world and led to a 25 per cent dip in the demand for gas up according to estimation by auditing giant, Deloitte. In 2020, the U.S. flared almost 12 billion cubic meters of gas in 2020.
Even though the data shows that Iran made the highest increase in post-COVID gas flaring levels, Russia maintains the lead as the highest contributor globally, burning over 25 billion m3 of gas in the atmosphere in 2021. An estimated 143 billion m3 of gas worth $145 billion was flared in 2021, according to the World Bank.
This is an Altair bar chart explaining the same data: